The throne passes from hand to hand; next year, it comes to my house (fourth update to make up for owed chapters)

"By practicing military farming, the soldiers of Lintong Pass can feed themselves and even produce a surplus to replace their weapons."

"From what I have seen today, General, it is just as you said. The troops are well ordered, and they have not neglected their daily drills."

Listening to Li Jing's praise from the high platform, Xiao Yin felt rather pleased with himself. He had thought his deeds had been exposed, but these were words of praise instead. What made him proudest was the fighting strength of the soldiers under his command.

Li Jing continued, "General Gui Tianlu once led men to seize farmland, taking the common people's land and turning it into public fields."

"Not only that, when noble merchants purchased salt from Guanjiangkou and passed through Lintong Pass, only five of their ten cartloads of fine salt were entered into the records. Thus, although there were clearly ten cartloads of goods, the trade tax was collected on only five. Where did the tax on the other five cartloads go?"

Xiao Yin's expression darkened, and he lowered his head slightly. The soldiers around him fell silent too, as though the atmosphere had instantly plunged below freezing.

Seizing farmland was a fact, but that had happened last year. Back then, they had still been relatively well behaved, taking some poor fields from the common people to cultivate themselves. It hardly counted as robbery-just intimidation and underhanded acquisition. The common people would never dare stand against these rank-and-file soldiers.

Besides, converting private fields into public fields had increased the land tax paid on them. Chaoge had benefited too.

This year, after the noble merchants began trading far and wide, they had stopped doing that. They returned all the fields to the common people, keeping only the land they had originally cleared